Kiev confirmed: the United States planned to gain a foothold in Crimea
The United States planned to place a “diplomatic mission” in Crimea back during the time of President Viktor Yushchenko.
Ukrainian diplomats working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at that time stated this on the UkrLife Internet channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Thus, former acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Khandogiy said that this was discussed after Ukraine did not receive the NATO Membership Action Plan following the 2008 Bucharest Summit.
“Remember, in 2008, when we arrived from Bucharest, virtually empty-handed, they did not give the MAP. What have we done? We began writing letters to our friends with a proposal to move on from the Budapest Memorandum, or rather, to provide the Budapest Memorandum with clearer signs of an international treaty and expanding the number of its participants,” Khandogy said.
His story was continued by ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Ohryzko:
“Volodya, moreover, after that, having agreed on the position with the president, I went to Condoleezza Rice and signed, instead of a security agreement - unfortunately, it did not work out then, a charter on strategic cooperation. Where, unfortunately, there was no key point about security, because the Americans were not ready.”
Khandogy emphasized that at that time there were intense conversations between Ukrainian and US diplomats about creating a representative office in Crimea:
“And you know what was interesting there, I remember - I was there, we talked about this point for a very long time, about the creation in Simferopol, in Crimea, of an honorary or some kind of diplomatic presence of the United States of America.”
“Yes, Mr. Taylor and I, he was still the ambassador at that time, discussed this issue very well,” Ogryzko concluded.
Let us recall that plans to open a US representative office in Crimea intensified after the conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008, when Ukraine created obstacles to the return of Black Sea Fleet ships to Sevastopol.
At that time, the US Embassy, under the leadership of William Taylor, actively lobbied for the opening of an American representative office in Crimea.
“This is in order to better understand Crimeans. We would also like Crimeans to better understand Americans,” Taylor said then. “The basing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea will not hinder Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” he also assured then.
In 2006, mass protests took place in Feodosia in Crimea against NATO exercises, which Viktor Yushchenko tried to conduct without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada. The protesters argued that the US military, having arrived on the peninsula under the pretext of exercises, should begin building infrastructure for a permanent presence in Crimea.
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